


Hurin family drabbles

by sian22



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Some Fluff, emyn arnen in the fourth age, family life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian22/pseuds/sian22
Summary: How do a new Prince and his Lady manage to raise three precocious children amidst resettlement of a long neglected land, diplomatic sorties and the occasional unexpected skirmish? As a team, of course!  Even if sometimes neither is quite sure who has the upper hand.
Relationships: Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Hurin family drabbles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnaFan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaFan/gifts).



> An occasional series about my favourite fourth age family...

The snow geese, once again, are come to winter on Anduin and the northern wastes trail in their creaking, white-swaled wings. She doesn't care for summer's heat; walks to the river each mid-day, in the pine-cold, in the marshbank-damp, listening to their calls in her pale woolen dress, in her blue cloak drenched with silver stars.

Small hands are clasped in each of hers.

They are mittened and chubby; the path below little boots is carpeted with yellow birch leaves that do not so much surrender to the gusts of winter as let themselves be taken prisoner; glimmering where they lie pale and perfect, bordered by drifts of white. In the distance the wide lawns tumble down merrily to the shore and he can't quite see where the sky begins and the placid water ends.

It has all changed too fast.

Once upon a time the world was new. Fast was the horse he wanted to ride when he was fifteen and the lad he wanted on his running team. When he was certain beyond all the circles of the world he could catch his dreams—stars falling to earth, starfired eyes blazing happily.

'Too fast' they whispered when he was falling in love with her. Thirteen days and the land did change. Bleak tides of wrack and ruin were left outside the blackened stone for proud, sad eyes and hair a waterfall of gold. She healed him, saved him, tongue-tied and words gushing forth in turn; letting him simply be where others had clamored for a piece. It did not matter that they said there was no chance that they could last—his heart hurled itself, free and unfettered, a wild swan carrying him dizzyingly into the arms of night and she, surprised, even moved, caught him before he fell.

She still caught his breath each day.

That smile. That cloak. That laugh. Time ran on little foal feet that barely touched the earth; skipped stones and danced with abandon below myriad wan winter suns, blearing all his sight. She skipped with them now, singing an old song of winter roses and chickadees, circling giddily as a girl for her bones know nothing of that coward 'slow'.

Horses and verses and harvests. How many have been here and gone and now another pair of raven and tow heads are there to play? Dark for the boy this time-Barahir, spinning and giggling too fast. If only he could pause the arrow as it left the bow, stop each candlemark from flying, each sunset from slipping below the fleeting gilded mountaintops.

He is a man of words. He knows their cut; their thrust and lilt, and still it baffles him. How can the meaning of this one word change? Sand always fell briskly through the hourglass but now it pours—like the river in spate, like the sweet wind through her hair, like the spilled milk from sticky fingertips; and all that he could do was try to catch it in his palm. Slow it down, soak all the blessings in. Will the happy moments to lay down and rest a while.

Oh but they will not.

He knew this—underneath where he kept that first daring, shadow-be-damned kiss. The first cry of each of their brood. Their smiles, and tears, and laughter rippling like sun on wheat sheaves.

Too fast.

He set down the quill. Shoved the inkpot and blotter and latest missive for the latest ambassador away. Bounded through the protesting door, wet-footed and red-cheeked, frosted by snow and a little grey, out to join the game.

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to Virginia Woolf and Luke Bryan. Merry Christmas Annafan!


End file.
